Marketing Safari

Please, help me find Karen in Denmark

Do you remember Karen from Denmark? The one who was looking for the father of her son, August, and then a new home for her fish? Well, she obviously wants to become a big YouTube star.

I'm running a social media marketing workshop in Denmark next week, one in Aarhus on Thursday and one in Copenhagen on Friday. In the workshop I'll be helping people and companies to find their way through the social media jungle, so I though I might help Karen out and invite her to the workshop. But I don't anything about her except that her name is NOT Karen. So if anyone out there knows Karen, please show her this video:

Karen can contact me by sending me an email to workshops@scope.is.

Hjörtur

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I'm Not a Terrorist

Just in case anyone was in doubt. Gordon Brown may have a different opinion, but he used the UK anti-terrorist legislation to confiscate the assets of Icelandic banks in Iceland, resulting in the collapse of the two largest ones. I owned stock in the banks. But I'm not a terrorist!

The results of this act is more serious than people realize. Icelandic companies were black listed as they were all of a sudden linked to terrorist organisations (Icelandic banks). The government and all Icelandic companies lost their credit. Since then Icelanders have had to pay everything in cash up front. Our currency doesn't exist anymore on foreign trade markets and is only traded in Iceland. This has made the recession in Iceland far more serious than necessary.

My son. Does he look like a terrorist? He's not!

I know the general public abroad doesn't perceive Icelanders as terrorist. But the "system" seems to do so.

Last weekend we had elections here in Iceland, were we got to vote for the Icelandic parliament. The Icelandic parliament is the oldest democratic parliament in the world and has been operating since the year 930, when the early Viking settlers who came here to flee the Norwegian king's monopoly, established a democratic parliament to run the country. Even when Icelanders converted from paganism to Christianity, that was done by a decision at the Icelandic parliament in the year 1000. No bloodshed and no cheating.

In those 1.079 years there has never been a reason to doubt the Icelandic democracy. We do not have an army and have never had an army. In the protests and riots following the crash and leading to the fall of the government, one broken arm was all the injuries. We fought the Brits over the Icelandic fishing territories and won with out firing a single shot. Iceland has topped the list of least corruption in the world.

Yet, the OSCE has seen a reason to send a team to Iceland to monitor the Icelandic election. Of course they did not find anything out of the ordinary or suspicious. But I find the fact that they considered it necessary to send people to Iceland to monitor the Icelandic election very humiliating.

We are a proud people with a strong record of democracy, gender equality, gay rights and human rights in general. We've topped lists for best life quality, highest life expectancy, lowest rate of child death, very low crime rate, least corruption, never had an army and we do not need to be treated like terrorists. Yes, our banks collapsed, yes, they participated in the hedge craze on Wall Street and in London City, yes, the government failed to put up safe guards strong enough to resist the failure of a bank system ten times the size of the national economy. Those are bad things but do not make us terrorists or criminals. It does not justify the treatment of the nation as a second class nation ran by terrorists and hooligans who's money or credit is no good. The main reason why so many are in favour of applying for inclusion in the European Union, is to rebuild confidence in the Icelandic economy and the Icelandic government.

We still have excellent infrastructure, world class health care, excellent education system, high technology level and well educated human resources. The situation in Iceland isn't as bad as people might think, because things were so extremely good. Unemployment rate has now peaked at 8,9% which is still far less than in many of the EU countries, foreign debt has sky rocketed but was merely existent before. Our governmental institutions, our media, our freedom of speech, is still intact and uncompromised. Our main problem at the moment is the treatment we are getting abroad.

So give us a break.

Hjörtur

A Great Opportunity for Travel Bloggers

A client of mine, a tour operator in West-Iceland, is looking for ways to promote a new adventure they are offering. It's a four day sea voyage exploring the untouched nature of the Breidafjordur bay. The nights are spent in an old village on an island without any cars. You will be sailing to deserted inlets, around Latrabjarg, a 444 meter high and 14 km long birdcliff which is Europe's most western point, bathing in a natural geothermal hot tub, trying out really fresh sea food and having face to face encounters with puffins and other sea birds. Even eagles. More info on the Breidafjordur Nature Cruise.

They are inviting journalists on their first tour on the 26th of May 2008. I have suggested they invite at least one blogger as well and now I am searching for that one blogger. If you are interested in a four day adventure cruise in Iceland on the 26th of May and are available from May 25th until June 1st, send me an email and convince me you're the blogger we are looking for. I will need information about you, your network and the readers to your blog (who, how many, where from, age, status etc). My email address is hjortur.smarason (at) gmail (dot) com. Please send me your info no later than midnight Thursday night (May 8th).

Present clients are people 45+, mainly from UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

Look forward to hear from you
Hjörtur
@hjortur

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pps. Know a travel blogger who might be interested? Forward this post to him/her.

Positive Impact of Negative Publicity

One of the common debates in PR and marketing is if all publicity is good publicity. Well, in my opinion, it's not always good. Bad publicity can kill a bad company. But if you have little publicity, bad publicity can give you an opportunity to get good publicity.

I'm going to take an example from nation branding. Denmark has got a lot of publicity in the muslim world because of the images of Muhammed, which I am not going to publish here. Arla, a Swedish-Danish dairy company lost a lot of market share for the time being so the impact was negative for them. But Denmark the impact seems to have been positive in most of the Muslim world, despite the noise, protest and burning flags.

According to a study made by Simon Anholt, a specialist in nation branding, more people in Indonesia, Malasiya, Turkey and Egypt now know of Denmark and would be interested in emigrating to Denmark. The image of Denmark has become more positive in their minds.

This applies specially to nations with little or none existing awareness. We can take the film Borat as another example of positive impact of negative publicity. The pictures of Kazakhstan we get to see in the film are quite extreme. But they are so extreme that most people realize they are extreme and not reality. The Kazakhs were mad about the movie and they published full page ads in US newspapers with loads of text correcting what was said about them in the movie. But as you can expect, nobody bother to read that. It was a lot more fun to watch the movie.

So what was the good thing Kazakhstan got out of the movie? It's debated if the movie can be considered good or not for Kazakhstan but I believe it has. Kazakhstan is a very large country in Central-Asia that very few people new even existed, unless they were very interested in the Soviet or Russian space program. The attention this movie brings to Kazakhstan is a great opportunity for the nation to invite journalists to come and see for them selves how live really is in Kazakhstan. This is an opportunity where the media would actually be willing to listen and the world would like to know more about Kazakhstan.

You have to manage your reputation and welcome interaction when you get negatvie publicity. Otherwise you will not be able to turn into something good. A friend of mine who is a news reporter on a TV channel went to Kazakhstan to learn more about the "homeland of Borat" but was arrested for filming in public. That would only be to reinforce the negative images.

If you get negative publicity, use the opportunity to proof people wrong (unless they are right). Kaupthing, one of the Icelandic banks is doing this now. The British media published stories about the public withdrawing their money from their bank accounts in the Icelandic banks and Kaupthing published figures showing that last week was actually their best week ever, but not the worst as the media said.

It's hard work to turn negative publicity into something positive, but I like to look at negative publicity as an opportunity to get my message across.

Hjörtur

Three Right Feet in Sneakers Washed Ashore

I don't know if you've heard about the odd discoveries in the Georgia Strait, between Vancouver Island and British Columbia mainland.

Three right feet were found within close proximity and a short period of time. Not only that, they were all dressed in a running shoe, men's size 12. So it is very unlikely to be off the same individual, though it can be from the same individual. Nobody really knows where they come from or how they got there. According to Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a specialist in drifting sneakers, they could come from as far as Alaska or California, even Japan.

You can't help but wonder. Last week I wrote about remarkable drifts including a huge Lego figure and three really big grand pianos wondering if this was place branding. Can the three feet in sneakers be place branding for Vancouver Island? Or a marketing stunt for some sneaker brand proofing that they can outlast the one who weares the shoes?

That would be "bad taste marketing" but considering what desperation gets people to do, you never know. It's not even sure if the men who the feet belonged to are actually dead or "just" amputated. Did someone buy three right feet in India for his marketing campaign like you can do with some other body parts, like kidneys?

I maybe stretching a bit far here. I hope I am.

Hjörtur

Giant Grand Pianos Washed Ashore in the Netherlands

The Dutch have never been afraid of the sea with 20% of the country being below sea level. It doesn't seem to bring them any threat or destruction. Instead, the beaches of the Netherlands have a tendancy to bring surprises.

The latest "beach surprise" are three grand pianos that washed ashore in Schiermonnikoog, on one of the Western Frisian Islands. Those grand pianos are no ordinary pianos. They are GRAND with a big G! But where did they come from? How did they get there? Are they originated from the same island of giants as the lego figure that washed ashore in Zandvoort last year with the words "NO REAL THAN YOU ARE" written on it? Are they from Easter Island? Or are they just the creation of some crazy dutchman?

I have a hunch, that the grand pianos have got something to do with a classical music festival that is in October each year on that island. But I don't really know. They don't claim it. If it's theirs, it's a great way to create some attention and curiosity around the island and it's cultural life. It's a teaser that gets a lot of attention but doesn't cost very much (in advertising, that is).

It's actually very important, if this is to spread virally, that noone claims it. It has to remain a mystery so that people have a reason to speculate and wonder and talk about it. "How did it get there? - What do you think?" The one who did it can than claim it in the autobiography 40 years from now.

Hjörtur

ps. do you know of more similar examples? Share them with us...

The Palestinian Nation Brand

Bush visited Ramallah today but this is the first time he visits Israel/Palestine since he became president eight years ago. The aim is to encourage peace talk among the rivals. I'm not going to express my self about Bush or his visit, since this is a marketing blog and not a political blog. I am not taking sites with the Israelis or the Palestinians, but both parts have done horrible things and suffered for it. What I am going to write a little about is the image Palestinians have and the problems associated with it. I may be playing with fire here, but hey, I promised you a bumpy ride, right? Since my academic background is in anthropology and International politics, nation branding is of great interest to me.

When you think about Palestinians, what do you see? There is some difference between the images of the Palestinians in Europe and the US, but the most common images are men shooting in the air, suicidal bombers, terrorists. Just try searching for "Palestinians" on Google images. You don't see victims. You don't see refugees who are now the third generation in the refugee camps. The media shows us pictures of fighting Palestinians and every time some Palestinians act accordingly, it proofs the terror image of the Palestinians. It doesn't matter how many act this way, while they are visible, they keep those images alive. At the same time these Palestinians give the Israelis reasons and justifications to keep oppressing the Palestinian nation and denying them of their rights, whether that is justifiable or not.

In my opinion, peace will not be achieved in Israel without the involvement of USA. But the general public in the USA has more sympathy with the Israelis than the Palestinians. While they behave like terrorists there is not much to do because you "do not negotiate with terrorists".

Before peace can be achieved several smaller achievements must be made. The first one is for the Palestinians to win more sympathy from the American public. So what they actually need to do is to rebrand themselves in America. Who are the Palestinians, what are they suffering and why? The Americans know about the Israelis and what they are suffering but they do not have the same sympathy for the Palestinians (these are of course generalisations with lots of exceptions).

The violence we see in Palestine is the fruit of desperation. Noone becomes a suicide bomber just because they were curious or adventurous. It's because they find them selves in a situation where they have nothing to loose. That does not justify anything. But it is a part of the reason. The only way, as I see it, for the Palestinians to see progress in their fight for independence is to stop fighting with violence. That has not gotten them anywhere and will never do.

The Palestinians are a small nation which is very weak measured in economics, weapons, military and political status, with the Israelis on top of everything. But if we can look at examples from history where a very weak power has conquered their superiors. My closest examples is from the cod wars were Iceland was fighting Britain over the fish in the see. Iceland does not have a military which means that physically, Britain could have crushed Iceland at any given time. But considering ethics, reputation and effect on their relations with other nations, they could not fight back with force. So in the end, they lost all the cod wars.

In the US Martin Luther King led the nonviolent resistance agains segregation. Because it was none violent, the superior part could not strike back with full force and Martin Luther King won his battle, though he lost his life. Mahatma Ghandi did the same thing in India. The same has to happen in Palestine. They need a leader who can lead them in a non violent fight. First then will their voice be heard in the US. First then will they stop being considered as terrorists that need to be supressed. First then can they expect the US to put some real pressure on Israel to make an agreement with the Palestinians.

The Palestinians need a "brand manager" to help them change the image of the Palestinians in the west. They should also get someone to help them with their keywords on the search engines, if they want their side of the story to be heard. But first they need to stop the violence. I recommend that all Palestinians read "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.". Heck, I recommend that everybody reads that book, which is the best I've ever read.

Hjörtur Smárason

Do They Get Anything to Eat?

I read in the news a few days ago that Super Mama Djombo, the most popular band in Guinea Bissau on the west coast of Africa, had just arrived in Iceland to make a record in the studio of Sigur Rós, a popular Icelandic band. So as the head of the parent council in my children’s school, I decided to dig up their contact person here in Iceland to see if they would like to come and play in the school and say a few words about their country.

Last Tuesday they came to the school and played their music for the kids. A band of fourteen they got 370 kids in Iceland, just below the North Pole, cheering and dancing to their African beat and having a lot of fun. When the kids where told that there was coming a band to play for them and that they were from Africa, one boy asked very seriously: “From Africa? Do they get anything to eat?”

It’s maybe no wonder, since the only time we here or see something about Africa, it’s about hunger, diseases, conflicts and disasters. The children don’t know much about people in Africa and this was the first thing that came to mind. So the core brand message from Africa is poverty and hunger. It’s a shame since the continent has such a rich and colourful culture. So this was a nice opportunity to show the kids that even in the poorest countries of the world, like Guinea Bissau, there still thrives an interesting culture life with joyful talented people, to show them that there is so much more to Africa than what we see in the NGOs marketing material.

That very same day UNDP announced it’s annual Human Development Index where Iceland was in first place with the best life quality in the world measured from life expectancy, GDP, education and more. Guinea Bissau was the third last on the list. Hunger and poverty are a bitter reality for way to many. It is truely a privilege to be born in Iceland.

Hjörtur Smárason